Dear Anne of Green Gables,

Even though sometimes I laugh at your melancholy, overdramatic moments, I totally understand you.

Like those times you did something stupid like accidentally dye your hair green, or smashed a slate over Gilbert Blythe's head, or accidentally made Diana Barry drunk and you fell into the "depths of despair" - I was right there with you. Maybe I haven't had the audacity to walk the top of a ridgepole or talk back to older people to put them in their place like you do, but you definitely externally express what I often feel inside.

And those interactions you have with Marilla, after you've done something foolish and Marilla says "fiddlesticks" and tells you how everything is "nonsense" and that the practical and sensible things are better...that's pretty much what goes on in my head all the time - the clash between my "oh my gosh I'll never get over this" side and my "oh please, get over yourself" side.

And I get how you feel when you don't want people or things to change as you get older, and how it feels like you don't quite understand why or how people's ideals change.

But I admire the way you're able to speak your mind and stubbornly stick to your beliefs while simultaneously being able to imagine how people feel in order to understand where they're coming from. You can win over even the toughest people without compromising your values. I tend to keep my own opinions hidden so well for the sake of preventing conflict or making people happy that I often can't seem to find them anymore.
It's interesting to see how I identify with different stages of your life than when I was younger and first watched you grow up. I've seen how my own ideals have change.
You give me hope in a lot of ways, Anne with an 'e' - possibly in more ways than anyone may ever know or understand.
Love,
Tammy Chan
A big fan since the 4th grade

Notes from New Life Fellowship Church.

That's the church I went to last Sunday with Pam. Apparently it's the church Greg Jao goes to, because Pam bumped into him the Sunday before and she got to hold his baby throughout the whole worship service. We didn't bump into him this past Sunday. Sad :[

The pastor giving the message that day was Pastor Rich Villodas, and he said that the church was moving through a series but for that day they were going to do a Christmas-themed message.

To be honest, it was kind of like one of those moments where your mom or dad says, "I have to tell you something," and it's something important but you already know what they're going to say, so you just brace yourself for the impact and reply, "Okay..."

That's what that five second moment felt like when he said he was going to give a Christmas message.

And then, just like in a good movie, an unexpected twist happens. What your parents were about to say wasn't what you thought they were going to say. Or at least, not in the way you thought they would.

Pastor Villodas started with describing what it was like for him to learn how to drive, and how he felt cool, calm, and collected because he was in the driver's seat. But when he was teaching his brother how to drive, his anxiety would increase tremendously because he was in the passenger seat. And being in the passenger seat magnifies the reality that you are not in control because you're not behind the steering wheel.

I laughed to myself because I immediately starting singing, "Jesus, take the wheeeeeeel, take it from my haaaands..." in my head :P

And he went on to say that he wasn't saying that it was a free-for-all and that we don't have any self-control, but he was talking about a more destructive kind of control that we try to hold on to.

How can we move from a life of control to a life of trust?

For Christmas messages, more often than not we try to identify with the typical Christmas characters: Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and so on. But really, when you think about it, we look the most like Herod.

There it is. There's the twist.

Pastor Villodas kept saying, "I know, this isn't the Christmas message you came to church to hear, right?" throughout his sermon.
But I kept saying in my head, "Oh no, this is just fine."

He went on.

Herod lives in us when we try to hold on to control that we do not have.
He tries to control the people around him in an anxious and manipulative way.
We love to be in authority, base our identity in our control over others.
It can happen in big ways, but it can be the most damaging in subtle and small ways. We want to control how people think. We want to control how people think of ourselves.

When Herod tries to control the people around him, he causes damage. He tries to control his future and his life situation. But when Christ comes, He seems to disrupt the lifestyles we've grown accustomed to and brings change.

And Herod doesn't like change.
We don't like change.

When change comes, we control by:
Trying to hold on (to what we possess)
Grasping (what we want)

But there's a fine line between planning and obsessing.
We often have the attitude of, "If God doesn't do it, then I'll do it."
We need to relinquish control in order to receive.

Suffering = whenever you're not in control.

We question, "God, will you really do this if I let this go?"

True prayer is the true transference of control.

Which area of your life do you need to give up control?

Hospitality say what?

It's fun and exciting to learn more about the gift of hospitality. It's fascinating to realize that there's something much deeper and richer to hospitality than just the joy of planning events or filling people's stomachs to make people feel comfortable and happy. And discovering more of what it is and what it could look like makes it exciting :]

I was thinking about the role of the host and the guest, and how I think it's very similar to the idea that in order to be a good leader, you have to learn how to be a good follower -

In order to be a good host, you have to know what it means to be a good guest.

And for Christians, that means learning to be a good guest in God's topsy-turvy kingdom. I think that's why I find reading Scott Bessenecker's book, How to Inherit the Earth: Submitting to a Servant Savior to be so important. He basically unpacks the idea of what it means to be a servant leader - a paradox our society today is baffled by - and what it means to submit to the people you host.

Jesus was the ultimate host/guest, of course. He was always traveling, relying on others to house him and feed him. He dwelled among the people he was serving. At the same time, he welcomed those on the margins of society - the ones that most people thought didn't deserve a place at the table - into the kingdom of God.

In order to be a good host of God's kingdom, we have to remember that God first hosted us as His guests, treating us like royalty though we come to Him in rags, in filfth, and with nothing to offer.

It's so interesting how He invites us to be hosts of His kingdom, but we get so caught up in things that we end up trying to take control, or forget that the kingdom we're inviting people into doesn't belong to us. Then we get choosy about who comes in, only being especially nice to those we like - or like us in return. Or, we invite people in, expecting them to give us something and if they don't, and we keep trying, we eventually give up.

And we forget.

We forget that we don't have ultimate control. We forget that we were once the very same guests. We forget that we belong to the kingdom but the kingdom doesn't belong to us. We forget that we are hosts because God empowered us to follow His example.

If hospitality really is a gift He's given me, and it's not just something some spiritual gifts test says I have, then dang, I'm both intimidated and honored to be entrusted with something like that to grow and share with others.

A wave of shame

always washes over me when I recognize that it's easier for me to love a stranger than some of my own family members.

Commence IV Staff Application Process

So I open the document, thinking, Okay, this shouldn't be too bad. It should be long, but with some good pacing and time to think, it should be just fine.

I skipped over to the question that asked me about my hobbies, and then decided to go through the application and answer the "easier" questions and come back to the ones that would require a bit more thought.

I'm so intimidated right now.
The questions get harder and longer and require more thought and substantial examples/evidence as you go further through the application. Yikes.
It's going to be a challenge trying not to overthink things.

I may have more questions for Carrie than I thought I would.

Also, my respect for people who went through this process to become an InterVarsity staff worker just increased tremendously - and I had a great amount of respect for them already.

It's beginning to look a lot like

...Thanksgiving.

I don't know if you remember, but in one of my posts about Thanksgiving break, I recognized suddenly that there was a lot more to unpack from my mind than I realized I needed. It kind of feels the same way now.

It's like I've been walking in slow motion through a blur of fast-paced events, and it's only now beginning to clear up and settle down...and not really at the same time. I've been looking forward to this break for a while, thinking that I was going to chill out and do whatever I wanted.

But I'm starting to get sucked into the rush of doing things again, when all I really want to do is just stay home and go at my own pace for a little bit before I start getting pulled this way and that.

Of course, I also recognize that life doesn't always work out the pace I want it to go, so I've kind of just been floating along, letting the current take me where it wants me to go. Which for me, isn't always a healthy thing.

I learned that from my summer of solitude between sophomore and junior year. I tend to be like "a jar of river water all shaken up" and what I need is to "sit still long enough that the sediment can settle and the water can become clear," as her spiritual director tells Ruth Haley Barton in her book, Invitation to Solitude and Silence.

So I'm beginning to recognize that even though I've been having a relatively easy-going semester where I've been flexible and not as panicky or stressed out as I normally am, it's still very important for me to protect my sacred space of solitude and Sabbath. And even though I've practiced how to carry that through my everyday activities and decisions, I need to create time and space each day or each week to let things settle.

I think the lack of this discipline is one of the reasons why I've had a number of emotional breakdowns this semester, despite my relatively stable and even thriving mental and physical states.

In any case, just wanted you to be prepared. My posts might get more random than they already are, and they may end up being longer than I want it to be because there's so much going on - not only in my head but in my life around me. And of course, I don't put everything on my mind on this blog, so can you imagine all the cranial activity that I'm experiencing?

Ruth Haley Barton also says, "My life as a writer and speaker revolves around being able to make sense out of things by putting them into words." What a good book. Perhaps I should read it again.

So blog away I shall, but I will first start by physically clearing a space to unpack my mind. My room has gotten a little bit messy since I got home, and I haven't had the motivation to clean it until now.

Music & lyrics

Warning: an extra unnecessarily long post - one of the ramifications of not blogging for a while.

There are a number of things I've been thinking about lately that kind of fall under this theme of music and lyrics because these thoughts kind of intertwine with one another in some shape or form.

In case you don't really know me, I like to sing...a lot. I sing almost everywhere/anywhere except the shower (ironic, right? That's where most people actually like to sing). I try to sing softly so that people won't hear me, and there are times when I'm aware that people are listening and I want to stop so they don't get annoyed or think I'm some weirdo, but I just can't help it sometimes. Singing gets me from place to place, bridges the gaps that don't make sense to me, and it's just fun. And singing softly just makes me feel like I'm holding back.

Although, there are some other things that hold me back from singing all out. One is the fact that I'm terrible at recalling lyrics unless I'm very purposeful and disciplined at learning them. I've sung/played Lifehouse's Everything song a bajillion times, but I still don't know the words or the order of the verses by heart. I don't even think I know the lyrics to my own songs.

Or at least, I'm not very confident that I do know them. I haven't disciplined myself to try and play & sing the songs without the words/chords in front of me. I probably do know them. I just don't think I do.

A couple of weeks ago I performed in Dickinson's Talent Show, playing one of my original songs, and I was a teensy bit frustrated at myself that I wasn't confident enough to play my songs without the pages in front of me. I feel like all other musicians can play their songs on the spot in a snap, but I have to have my computer in front of me to make sure I don't make a mistake.

Just typing all of this out makes me realize the simple solution is to practice. I need to practice playing/singing songs without the music. Duh.

I also feel like it's important because lyrics in general are really important to me. I love melodies and harmonies...but maybe it's because I'm more proficient in English than music because lyrics to me give music more depth and meaning. Instrumental music alone lets everyone take their own path to understanding, but lyrics kind of say, "Hey this is my story. Would you be willing to let me guide you through it? As you listen, can you see and feel what I see and feel?"

Although, the other thing that holds me back from singing all out is my guitar playing. I can manage to play and sing at the same time, but my mind is so concerned about my inadequate guitar playing that I don't focus as much on singing, which leads to more singing mistakes. If I had my way, I'd have an uber awesome guitar player that I could stick in my pocket and pull out anytime I wanted to sing a song. I only play guitar because I feel like I have to. The marriage of music and lyrics just isn't the same when you separate them. In the same way lyrics give music more depth of meaning, the right music gives lyrics a solid foundation and a vehicle that everyone can take a ride in.

I have some thoughts on Christmas songs and their lyrics, too. But I will save that for a different post.

Ugh. This post is getting way too long. I have more to say but I will say them later.

Buried love.

I have accumulated sore ankles, mysterious cuts, and bruises scattered along my legs.
To me, ice skating is worth every single one.
Ice skating always awakens in me this deep longing to learn how to figure skate. It's this old love that I keep forgetting that I'd want to answer when people ask those ice breaker questions like, "If you could learn anything in the world, what would it be?" or, "If you could go back in time, what would you do?"

On the ice today, I was thinking about how much ice skating always makes me feel like I can simultaneously do anything and absolutely nothing. It's paradoxically liberating and limiting at the same time.
I really wanted to dance. Not like the, "let's-go-to-the-club" kind of dance, but a kind of longing to spin and sway, sweep my arms around and bend my whole body. The only things that were holding me back were my lack of knowledge of how to do so, and the fear of falling and hurting myself - not so much the fear of looking stupid or silly. It was weird because I always tell people how I have no desire to move my hips (especially in Zumba...yuck), but when I'm ice skating you could probably tell me to move my hips and if you put on some good music, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

At the same time, it feels limiting because I don't know how to do anything real figure skaters can do except skate around the rink over and over again. I totally wish I could do more.

Maybe I'll read more about ice skating this winter break. Maybe reading about it enough will placate my hunger to jump and spin on ice. Maybe I'll read about ice skating and watch all of these YouTube videos of figure skaters and the how-tos of figure skating.



There's just something so beautiful about watching figure skaters and something so exhilarating about ice skating that it always stokes a fire in me I forgot I always had.

More memoir stretching.

So, I'm still working on my memoir. People keep asking me to read it, but it's not done yet. Especially after it was workshopped/critiqued by my class, I'm in the process of making a lot of changes.

One of the main things my classmates had trouble finding was the cause for the change. And, even though I've been making some breakthroughs since my emotional breakdown, what has been frustrating me is that I've been searching through this vague cloud of "I don't remembers" and "I don't knows" for finding that cause. I wanted to leave it at that, at the idea that I couldn't pinpoint any kind of reason because I just assume it was a process. But I needed some kind of scene to show that it was a process.

And I was reaching back into my old files of memories in my mind, still searching for answers to help me make sense of it all.

And I found it. It was tucked under a lot of old memories I didn't really care to remember, even though it was really important. And I know why.

It's because it's stupid. So stupid. Really, it's stupidest thing ever. No joke.

And now I have to write about it in my memoir, because it's a pivotal part of tying everything together. Now I'm not frustrated that I can't figure out what I've been missing. Now I'm frustrated that I have to write about what I found.

I know, I know, this all sounds very vague and mysterious. Maybe I'll explain one day. Or you'll just have to read my stupid memoir that's taking me forever to write.